Podclass 8: Release Phase Action Items

Podclass Show Notes and Links

Summary:

Episode 8 brings us right back into the first phase, the Release phase. This time however, we’re getting even more detailed. This episode is all about the action items that are most important for beginning to live in sync with healthy cycles, starting from the time your period starts. It’s your guide to taking action to learn more about decreasing unpleasant symptoms–like anxiety and bloating–and approaching your world in a less frazzled way.

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Transcript for This Podcast

Hi there. This is Alex. Welcome back. I’m so excited to have you going me for this next podclass. It’s been so much fun talking with you guys. Hopefully you’re finding it educational and helpful, and hopefully you’re taking the action steps to get this started going in your own life so that you can actually see the transformations that Megan and I are talking about for yourself, and stop just hearing about them happening for other people. It’s time to include you too in that success thing.

We are going to switch gears just a little bit, because so far we’ve really focused on what is happening inside the body. And I know I keep drilling this home, but it really is very important to me that you guys learn what is happening inside your body or what should be happening and how you could be deviating, because that insight vastly changes your experience. Instead of just doing random stuff, you can begin to hear, “oh that’s me. That’s where it’s going wrong. This is what’s happening. How can I begin to impact that.” And then when you have that detailed laser like focus, you can really go in and just some minor tweaks can make a huge difference instead of trying to do general stuff. Like I don’t know for every dollar, if I had a dollar for every time I saw chasteberry and vitex told for all women to take it, I would be super wealthy right now because there is a lot of general information out there, but it really becomes a game changer when you can tailor your needs to very specific processes going on inside your body and then choose things that actually impact them in a focused way. And that’s when the real magic happens without you being miserable and doing all this extra stuff that isn’t necessary.

Now that we’re doing, we got that, we’re good on that hopefully. You guys have understood all of it. If not, come chat with us over on social media, shoot us an email, and we will get it all straightened out with you. But, let’s switch gears and we’re going to be more action oriented from here on out. Because, as much as we love and appreciate the importance of the theoretical, really what we want is to take action and make things better for you in a tangible way. Right off the bat, we’re eight episodes in, now it’s going to be really getting into the nitty gritty of what you start to do in each phase, and then we will really take off with some details, some fun troubleshooting stuff, I mean that’s really where the rubber hits the road.

But, we’re going to start at the beginning as usual with the Release Phase. We already talked about what was happening and why this phase was so important for kicking everything off and setting up the rest of the cycle. And what I’d like to go through for each of these phases, we’re going to talk about the food goals for this week, the movement goals for this – sorry I keep saying week but I really mean phase, however long this is for you – movement goals, a ritual that we recommend you do, and then some mental work that we want you to focus on. And a lot of times what we’ll do is give you some questions for journaling, or meditation, or some general introspection. Whatever you want to do with that, but generally there is some things that we have worked with enough women over and seen repeatedly that usually we just, it’s nice to bring this sort of stuff up.

I’m going to start with the food section for each of these. So for the Release Phase, for the food, this is all about beginning to identify foods that most work for you. I like to do as inclusive of a list as possible, just like we talked about in the earlier Release Phase Podclass. We want to write down everything that we like eating and that we feel good about eating. So things that work for us. And then most people will have foods that their either not sure about, or know automatically don’t really work for them but for some reason keep eating them or drinking them. And so that right off the bat can be a really great way. Even if you don’t end up doing a formal elimination diet, which is ultimately at least once we believe that everyone would benefit from doing elimination diet within the context of your cycle, because then you really figure out exactly what diet works for you, instead of listening to other people tell you should be eating. Actually finding out for yourself what works for you now. And then we, so Megan and I both personally do an elimination diet at least once a year because things change so drastically just from living in this cycle way for a year now, my food options have expanded greatly, and the things that I’m able to tolerate. And, you know, physiologically can’t even explain all of them, but that’s just the way it’s gone and I love it. Cause it’s great. I just feel so much less restricted with all this stuff. But definitely I’m going to be mentioning elimination diets. It’s totally fine if you don’t do an elimination diet, but it still follows a similar pattern. So apply this to whatever diet you want to implement, or something that you’ve been trying to do and haven’t been successful on.

So the Release Phase is all about trying to eat as nutrient dense as possible while beginning to identify factors. Usually for example, when we do our Healthy Hormones group program, one of the first exercises we have our ladies do is we’ll ask them what their top three thing are that they know they should not be doing, or should not be including, or should be doing but aren’t. And a lot, I would say 85% of the people their list looks something like; eat more veggies, eat less sugar, get more sleep. And that is the overwhelming majority and it’s like we know what do do, we just don’t do it. And it’s, for the most part, because we’re doing it at the wrong times in the cycle and that’s setting it up appropriately. But it’s also just a matter of actually when you address that and call it out, call yourself out on it, then all of a sudden it shines a light on it, and it’s really hard for things to hide when they’re in our instead of subconscious, they’ve become conscious. And so now that you are more aware of it, it’s a lot more powerful of a place to be then pretending like it’s not happening and pretending like you don’t need to deal with it. It’s just a different mental space and it ends up being a lot more productive. For that you want to start the most basic implementation and kind of resetting where you are. So all you do during this Rise Cycle, is you just say, “you know what, I’m going to go to be an hour early” because that impacts inflammation, it impacts rest, there’s a lot of benefits just from doing one little thing like that. Or, “OK, I’m going to cut out a lot of the sugar that snuck back in.” Or, “Ok, that Coke habit really…” I mean Coke like the drink not coke like the cocaine that crept back in. Although no, if you need help with that, there’s places to go. This week is a great time for planning and just sort of setting everything up. When we do our 4 Phase Cycle Detox group with our ladies, then what the release phase is is really just beginning to purchase everything you need to purchase, getting plan in place on what you’re going to do setting aside time like, “hey, my partner is going to take the kids for 20 minutes or 30 minutes each night so that I can do my meditation, journaling, and planning for my meals the next day.” Whatever that is for you, this is the time to implement, because again, you have your left and right brains communicating so well right now that you are so primed to do this work. More than likely, I don’t need to tell you what to do necessarily. More than likely, you know exactly what you need to do. It’s just a matter of recontextualizing it and taking it from something that’s like a, “oh I messed up, I’m a bad person,” to like, “no, I’m in charge of my life and I choose this. This is who I want to be and this is what I intend.” Very different discussion. And so I am here to give you ideas and all of that, but really from each of these categories you want to do what you are drawn and feel you need. And that’s the power of this. So food is all about planning, cleaning things up, and beginning to identify problem areas that you want to impact.

As far as movement goals go, like we talked about the Release Phase is still a time of rest where the body internally is very busy, and it needs some down time and recuperation from all of that. Whether you don’t exercise at all or you’re an avid Crossfitter, during this time we want to take down the intensity of our movement and do slow methodical longer turn things, so more like walking and hiking. You can obviously scale it to wherever you are. So if you are in the Crossfit gym six days a week or you are training for a marathon, that doesn’t mean you give up on your goals. Just like in the larger grand scheme of the Release Phase is a time to let go of what doesn’t work for you so that you can take action on new things. It’s kinda like this: your time to take it a little bit easier this week will give you the power to ramp up next week and the following phase, the second and third phase, in that action oriented powerful time, you’ll really get off the ground and see huge gains. And then again you’ll kind of simmer back down to a period of rest. Instead of going all out all the time, what you’re doing is finding natural areas of rest and gain, and stretching your body. And there will be plenty of time to push yourself to new highs, new limits, new just higher than you ever expected to go. But you need that period rest first. That’s the Release Phase. Wherever you are I would say scale it back about 20%. The only person that this should be different for is if you’re completely sedentary. Our reproductive organs and our body craves movement because in addition to ourselves being programed to do things, our cells actually need the movement of our body and all of the push and pull that happens with it in order to function properly. So a lot of the blood flow that happens, a lot of the signaling that happens between cells relies on these external factors because we evolved to be moving animals. So if you’re sedentary, it’s important that you incorporate some slow gentle movement into this process. You’re the group, if you fall into this, that this is a great time to call up a girlfriend and say, “do you want to walk with me in the mornings three days a week?” Or something like that. Or whatever it is that you want to do; if it’s a hike in a park, or just simply carrying groceries up and down the stairs instead of having your partner do it, or something like that. Whatever it is for you, doesn’t matter as long as some gentle, purposeful movement is in store for you. Again, if you’re doing something very strenuous I would recommend cutting back about 20% during this phase. And don’t worry, I know some of you are like, “no I don’t want to! How am I going to do with my goals.” You will see that in the second and third phases you will go above and beyond faster and more powerfully that you would have expected. So give yourself the time now and your body will thank you and give you/pay you back in much greater ways then if you don’t take this time. Try it out, if you don’t like it you can always go back to exercising and going ham on whatever you want to do. But for now just trust me on this and give it a shot at least once.

So that’s movement. We’ve covered food and movement.

Now the ritual for this phase that we challenge you to do is actually super fun. You’re going to take one night or one day – whatever you have or even if it’s an hour if you have young kids – you’re going to set up a safe haven wherever you choose. So if it’s your bedroom, or your bathroom, lets say whenever I’ve done this ritual this is my time. I set up our bedroom, I kick everyone out of it – because we have pets – and I have candles, I have my netflix set up, I have my favorite foods, I have my magnesium spray, and my favorite essential oils, and my favorite crystals, and my jornal, and my tarot cards. And I have everything that just jams, like everything that makes me feel good, all my favorite foods, I take a nap, I watch some tv, I do some meditating. Whatever it is you want to make your space and your time a safe haven for you and really honor a little alone time to rest and recharge. And you want to, you’re basically just kind of an input. You’re trying to fill this safe haven up with everything that makes you feel good. You’re purposefully identifying, which is really important, and giving yourself, equally important, the things that you need to feel really good in your life and in your environment. What you’re going to do is identify those things and then bring them into your reality and set up boundaries so that you get to experience those things in a very intimate sort of way. This is just for you. This is just for your experience. And that actually leads us into the mental mindset stuff that we are going to have.

For your journaling exercises for this phase. There’s a couple questions I want you to answer. And there’s actually only one that I think really matters, and it’s one of the hardest ones to answer, and that is: What do you want? What do you want to happen? What do you want in your future? What do you want in your life? This can be really hard to answer, but we want to take the time to really consider it and start to identify ways to make it reality more often in your life. So if something that you like is having time to have lunch with your girlfriends – where that’s something that makes you feel really happy but you never get to it because you all have young kids and a job and all of that stuff – you identify that as something that fulfills you and that makes you feel good and recharges you so that you can be a better mother, employee, boss, whatever. And then you want to figure out how you can make that more of a reality. So if that’s sitting down with your partner and saying, “look, on Thursdays or Fridays afternoon I’m going to get my nails done with my girlfriends. I just, can you please take the kids for this one afternoon a month.” It’s built into the schedule, or maybe you get a babysitter, you put your phone on silent so no one can call you with requests, and you deliberately take that time. And a lot of us feel very weird about doing this in the beginning because 1) we aren’t very clear about what it is and 2) we’re not very clear about why we’re doing it. So then you’re like, “it just seems selfish. Like I’m just dumping the kids on my husband and I’m just going to leave and go.” But the thing is is that it’s important to identify really the things you want in your life. And then it’s really important that you actually give yourself those things because by you being happy and fulfilled you will show up as a mother, a partner, a boss, an employee so much more profoundly and so much more presently. So instead of always wishing that you were somewhere else while your kids are badgering you, you can come back recharged and be like, “hey, I’m happy to hang out with you. Let’s do something fun.” You will bring the best of yourself to the table if you are being fulfilled in like a meaningful sort of way. So resist the urge to ignore this ritual and not do this mental mindset because it can take some time to sit there and say, “wow, it’s been years since I really did anything for myself or by myself. And I really haven’t evaluated what it is that I want.” If someone could say, “OK, you don’t have to work from here on out, you don’t have to do anything, you just, what do you want to do? Let’s do it.” And most of us are like, “yeah that sounds great.” And then you think and you’re like, “hmm, I would be done with my list by like tomorrow afternoon.” Get clear on what actually makes you feel good – not the things that are supposed to make you feel good, but the things that actual make you feel good. And then beginning to figure out how you can have more of that in your daily life.

Now, let’s say you’re running a – our minds are going to make up reasons for why we can’t do those things – you’re going to be like, “you can’t afford to get nails done every month, you shouldn’t be spending that money.” You absolutely don’t have to pay money to have the things that you want, but you have to get creative in how you fulfill your needs. So if getting your nails done fulfills the need of you giving yourself time and making yourself feel pretty and put together, then list for yourself as you journal what other, brainstorm what other things fit that criteria. Is making a bath at home and painting your nails after you get out of the bathtub for yourself going to cut it or not. Or is buying one of the sheet masks – I love doing that – sheet masks and wearing it around and watching tv while the sheet mask works. Their like $2.99 at the sore, maybe you can afford that. It’s actually not ever the actual thing, it’s more – it’s not like swedish fish fulfill me emotionally, it’s more that swedish fish have historically been available to me when I’ve been like, “ah, I’m so stressed! I’m in need of comfort.” I really didn’t want the swedish fish, what I wanted was comfort and relaxation and they were an easy way to cop-out and get that. When I really should have just stopped, addressed the needs that I have, and given them to myself. Right? So that is what your goal is. While you’re setting up your safe haven ritual, then do some of this journaling and answer the question of what do you want? And then make sure to follow it up with how can I give that to myself on a daily basis. Or at least on a regular enough basis that that works and fulfills that need.

Alright. This is great stuff. You guys are going to love it once you do it. This is so much fun. And the safe haven, it can even be a permanent one, can be as simple as setting up a little room divider and having your yoga mat back there, that’s just your place not for anyone else, whatever it is. You just leave it up. Or not, just set up your bedroom. Whatever it is make it work for you and make it super fun. That’s your one job. Alright ladies, well thank you for joining me. We will be back next time with the Rise Phase, and we will get going. Alright, see you later.

Possible Soundbite

2:05-2:41

But, let’s switch gears and we’re going to be more action oriented from here on out. Because, as much as we love and appreciate the importance of the theoretical, really what we want is to take action and make things better for you in a tangible way. Right off the bat, we’re eight episodes in, now it’s going to be really getting into the nitty gritty of what you start to do in each phase, and then we will really take off with some details, some fun troubleshooting stuff, I mean that’s really where the rubber hits the road.

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